


Of Tombstones and Fundaments

by yerevasunclair1965



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:41:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24724714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yerevasunclair1965/pseuds/yerevasunclair1965
Summary: Catelyn and Ned visit the crypts at Winterfell, pre-Game of thrones
Relationships: Catelyn Stark/Ned Stark, Catelyn Tully Stark & Ned Stark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	Of Tombstones and Fundaments

Ned Stark arrived at the glass gardens, to observe if the vegetables grown by the servants were not being infested by some rodents or pests. It had been a minor trouble for a fortnight, leading to poor quality of ingredients for the castle’s food but the gardeners invented improved strategies to better prevent them this time. They planted more flowers to attract beneficial insects, fed the soil with manure and set up barriers. They began planting varieties that were more resistant to pests and arranged each row composing of different herbs and crops instead of one kind in each. 

On the left corner of the gardens, he spotted blue roses and suddenly recalled that today was Lyanna’s nameday. He would go for a visit in the crypt to greet hear and pay his respects as well to Brandon and his parents. He went, greeted the tending servants and started picking the blossoms that were unaffected by the pests. He picked blue roses for Lyanna, chose white roses for his lady mother Lyarra and dark purple peonies for Brandon and his father. He cut off the thorns himself then walked out of the glass gardens gripping a bouquet in his hand. 

He walked and walked, stroking some of the petals and when he steered to a blind corner, he bumped into his lady wife.

“Oh, I’m sorry my lady. I did not see you heading my way.” 

“It’s alright my lord.” she smiles. 

He freezes into place as her eyes and lips constantly smile at him and at what he was bringing. He realises just then, how stupid it was of him not to have thought of endowing her with flowers to at least brighten another day of duty. 

“It’s Lyanna’s nameday today, so I have to visit the crypt. Would you like to accompany me there?”

“Yes, my lord.” She says in an obedient tone that masks some hesitance. He is ill at ease, of his inconsideration of her warm-bloodedness. 

“Uhm, never mind. You need not come with me, it’s very dark and cold down there and it would unsettle you. I’m sorry, I haven’t considered your….”

“No, I’d love to come with you, Ned. Truly.” she interrupted. 

They ambled side by side and when they arrived at the entrance of the crypt, Catelyn paused to let him lead the way. He turns to her shortly as a thick fog comes out of her trembling exhalation. She crossed her arms, which made him regret escorting her here but it would be impolite to stop her, leave her outside or order her elsewhere. 

Many candles were lit on each side of every wall along the aisle. They passed through statues of old kings and lords, with the tombs of their ladies and children beside them. The tombs of his departed loved ones stood at the innermost with a wide vacancy at their right hand, where he and his lady would soon be laid to rest. 

Ned scanned the statues of his father and brother, silently asking them to guide him in his leadership as he placed the flowers at their feet. He handed the white roses to Catelyn, so she’d be the one to offer them to her mother. He proceeded to Lyanna’s tomb, putting the blue roses on her palm. Ned continued to pray silently to his Old Gods and when he finished his devotions, she saw Catelyn, still holding the white roses and gazing at Brandon’s immaculate carved face. 

_And do you love Brandon still? As Robert enduringly loves Lyanna all these years even after her death? Even in your heart, I am the long-standing second best._

Ned turns away bitterly, hating the jealousy of seeing her lengthy, glaring adoration on Brandon’s statue. He loves her and he loves Brandon, but he loathes any remembrance of Brandon that would preserve her romantic passion for him and extinguish the tiny prospect of a full-flourished love. They have established the foundation of their marriage; the primary pile of boulders were obligation, allegiance and honor; intimacy, self-happiness in family and love followed secondarily. 

_Are the wild fires of first love so splendid and peerless, it will throw away what we’ve assembled little by little as if they’re mere pebbles?_

———

As she collided into him, the halves of their bodies creating a knocking sound, she thanked her New Gods that she came across him without any importance. Her mood radiated when she saw the flowers, expecting they were for her but then disappointment dawned on her when he didn’t award them to her because they were meant for Lyanna instead. 

Catelyn never visited the crypts of Winterfell and when Ned offered her to come along with him, she hesitated for a moment. She was terrified of that site, not because of ghosts but for its atmosphere. She was born a summer girl, and its dimness and iciness would vibrate and puncture within an outsider such as her. But she was curious of the crypt as well and it was a good idea to go, on the condition that it’s with him. 

The sculpture of a direwolf was located on the crypt’s entry and from a far, the coldest air gushed out, bearing cheerless whispers of the austere shadows that dwelled. She did not wear any gloves and thus she hugged her elbows with her hands for warmth when they immersed into the crypt. 

Her husband is a lord who breaks traditions. Every Northman is knowledgeable of Ned being the first lord to command the creation of his siblings’ statues when it was decreed to be exclusive for the kings and lords alone and not for the other family members. His defiance is often admirable, but also results to offensive breaches, those she doesn’t want to ponder on. 

They stopped at the statues, the Lord Rickard perfectly sharing Ned’s resemblance and Brandon, whose handsomeness may have come from the influence of the Lady Lyarra. Old Nan had always said the elegance and grace of the Lady Lyarra was beyond compare, whose beauty and high spirits were inherited by the eldest child and the only daughter. She now held the white roses her sweet Ned brought for her but did not lay them down atop her grave yet, as the distraction of her first love snatches her. 

The figure of Brandon brought sweet memories to her, of his barking laugh after he said a funny joke and how he embodied the perfect fantasies of a naive Tully lady. She gazed at the sword at his lap, its size near as big as Ned’s Ice, reminding her of his unforgivable hideous death. 

_And I cried endless and barely ate a thing. Now I stand at his tomb with the younger brother that I married and had come to inexplicably love._

She peeks at Ned, who was still praying to his Gods. She looks at her feet to pray to her own, hoping she could continue to heal him from his embedded woes and give the peace of mind that was deprived of him by the consequent deaths of his family. She also prays for Riverrun, to protect her father and brother who she terribly misses and to let the souls of her mother and the baby who perished with her rest on. The death of Lady Minisa was the introductory event that taught her of the proceedings of their funeral customs. She still can’t forget the tears that flowed in his father’s eyes as he shot the burning arrow on her sailing pyre. 

_The Tully funeral customs is such a generous design, for one’s ashes to enrich the soil habitat of fishes and plants to repay the gift of life. But I am a Stark, and soon when I die, my bones will be hidden white and frigid under the earth beside my Ned’s grave and statue. It may be a gloomy, steely crypt to be buried in, quite to my dislike, yet the restfulness of the soul would be the only matter that would count._

Perturbing imaginations fluttered through her mind, of Ned and her, which of them would die first, to be a widow or widower. It made her want to leave the crypt as soon as possible, as she accidentally meets the eyes of the dour sculptures piercing at her. 

_More or less I’ll succumb to a death caused by sickness, or by bleeding on the birthing bed while his fall would be on the battlefield without question. In spite of that, I still wish we’d naturally die together after we properly leave our instructions and goodbyes, so that neither of us would have to be left behind grieving on an empty bed._

“Catelyn?” Ned calls her out to terminate her deep musing.

“Ned..” she replies, snapped. She clutches on to the stems of the white roses, without noticing that one of them still had a thorn about to prick at a finger. 

“Ow!” she yells and lets go of the flowers in a blow. 

“Cat..”, Ned strides to her in a rush taking her punctured hand, “Oh, I’m so sorry.. I did not see there were still unbroken thorns.” he deeply apologises and immediately brings the finger to his mouth, sucking the blood of her wounded index and biting it to stop the bleeding. The gesture stuns her, delighted that a finger put to his lips was not a unique restriction of shushing him. Her other free fingers pet the beard at his chin, a sign of her gratitude and endearment to him.

“I’m sorry I kept you long in here…” he takes her other hand. He surrounds his hands over hers and cups both her hands such that it covered his mouth so he could blow his hot breath to remove the glacial gloves until he was contented that he had sufficiently warmed them. A quavered laugh escapes her, when he still did not let go of her hands by squeezing it. 

“You said you wouldn’t keep me long down here.” she admonishes him, in a voice that equals his though her soft heart is charmed. He releases his hold of her and picks up the white roses and laid them atop lady Lyarra’s tomb. Ned pauses to murmur his one last prayer and loving words to his mother before he cues her to take his arm, which she grabs so tightly to the point that she could mark them.

This is where their bones will lay and that’s the sum of it. She banished all rumination of death and burial as the breath of his life that took the chill off her a while ago reminded her to think about how alive they both were. 

They were walking out of the sunless basement briskly and when they had finally stepped out into daylight, Catelyn switches her concentration to life and to the living. 

Many rocks will bury them beneath in the future but today she has her Ned, the rock her life is presently being built on. And she will treasure that cornerstone as she lives to the fullest with an imperishable love, coupled with the fruits that nurture from it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for leaving kudos and comments!!


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